Scaling back after the Baneblade...

 Slowly working through lots of things on the desk to make room for the rejuvanation of the last of my Late War Germans in advance of a local Flames competition in May. 

 First, some Panzer IIIs for my EW Germans: 

Markings are still to do, but we'll get there. I'm having a bit of a think about how I want to do that still.  

I had 4 8-rads in my EW collection and I'm unlikely to ever use all of them so I decided a couple could be redone in dunkelgelb:

 

This has opened up the hilarious proposition of doing KG Graebner from the LW Bulge book, a list I never got around to in FoW 3E. I have looked at it in Forces and it might be hilariously terrible. 

I've also getting started on list building for the competition in May and so I'm painting a platoon of Fallschirmjager - I started with the CO and 2iC bases that I could make up from the blister as a test of painting camo smocks: 

 

They're cool. The camo is quite loud in person, but I think it works well in 15mm at tabletop scale. They open up a number of list options for the comp as well as a number for me generally that I haven't been able to run, especially now that LW Dynamic Points have made the D-Day FallschirmStuGs a much more interesting list than it was. 

Next Time

More random stuff, I expect....  

IT IS THE BANEBLADE

My 3D print parts arrived over the weekend so I have enjoyed the satisfaction of finishing the Baneblade build so here she is:

 

The 3D print parts were to turn the a four-sponson build into a two-sponson build with double the guns. The key parts were the quad-heavy flamers and the double mount for the lascannon. I hadn't been able to preview the flamer parts in the STL and, in person, I did not love them. So, some aggressive filing and chopping later and the four GW flamers were trimmed down to fit into the gunshields from the 3D print kit. I played around with the GW kit mounts but decided I liked this one better. 

 There's still a bit of filling to do around the seams on the sponsons but I'll let all the glue on the heavy flamers cure properly and get the sponsons completely assembled before I do that. 

But I tell you something for nothing, she looks SO DAMN COOL. The kitbashed heavy flamers have given me the look I wanted (looking not dissimilar to a Hurricane Bolter) and the double lascannons look badass. 

 Fingers crossed (and a bit of dedicated painting time) I'll get this Guard army ready to go at a club day in March. 

Next Time
Some more Early War armour, finished Rough Riders and some WIP of the Baneblade... 

Going back in time?

 I decided to take a break from painting horses for the far future (because the horse is still a fine weapon in the 41st Millennium) and start clearing the decks so I can get to work on my secret tech for this year's club competition for Flames of War. The assembly is underway but until I've made some serious progress, you're unlikely to find out what that secret tech is... 

So in an effort to make room for the prep to begin, I needed to move the EW from the staging place next to my painting desk to my ACTUAL painting desk. Painting EW armour isn't especially difficult so I thought I should just crack on, platoon by platoon, until it's done. 

This is my Leichte Panzerkompanie HQ - a Panzerbefehlswagen, a Panzer I and two Panzer IICs. Excepting the Panzer IIICs, the rest of the army is either Panzer I or Panzer II hulls. Anything else would be fundamentally incorrect!  

They all still need markings and I think I know what I want to do given that markings in the invasion of France are kind of all over the shop. I'll do that once the army is done so that it's all vaguely coherent.  I am still tempted to put some foliage on them but I'm currently resisting the urge as anti-air defences were simply not a problem the Germans were faced with in this part of the war so that might get left for the Panzerjager Is, the PaK36s and the recce troops. 

I also decided I should paint a gun so herewith my first Luftwaffe 88: 

I have a pair of these, cobbled together from BF scenic objectives.  I appreciate how much more detail there is on the base! 

Next Time

More Early War? Maybe my finished Rough Riders? Maybe the finished Baneblade? Maybe what happens when my ADLG Minoans take on the might of Scotty's Warring States Chinese?  Some or all of that. 

Large lads!

 So while I'm waiting for my 3D print sponsons to get done so I can finish building (and thus paint) the Baneblade, I'm clearing the decks of the other Guard things I need to do. 

 First, moar beef. I picked up a second trio of Bullgryns after the new Guard detachment allows you to throw a Commisar into the squad. The whole image is slightly comedic (and feels a bit circus-conductor-y) but I think they'l lbe a fun squad to run.  

 

Second, I have completed half my Rough Riders. Being able to smash through three at once was quite pleasing and the fact that they've quietly come together as a squad in terms of how they look has made me super happy. 

 

It's a nice encouraging place to be to push through the last five and then have a bit of a think about how they're going to be decorated with decals to finish the whole squad off once they're done.  

Next Time

Potentially taking the Guard out for a run if I can line things up and doing some prep work for my secret tech for this year's club Flames of War competition.   

Tercios and their use in Renaissance warfare...

...or how, honestly, not to do it? 

 

 So I broke out my Early Spanish Colonial against blogger Scotty's Gustavan Swedish for a game of ADLG-R. This game has been a long time coming and finally getting those Tercios done over the Christmas break meant we could finally have it!  

This is where we started - Scotty looking to get into my refused centre and me looking to sneak around his right flank. The Tercios deployed in their traditional triangle formation pointed at the enemy but the much more rapid Swedes came on at pace. 

You can tell it was a good game when I utterly forgot to take enough pictures until we ended the game! Roughly, Scotty turned my left flank which left me dangerously exposed (enough to charge a Colour Regiment in the front with Gendarmes to stop them turning the flank of a Tercio!) but my light horse kept me in the game doing sterling work dinging up cavalry enough that I shot one off the board with heavy artillery. 

In the centre, the Tercios ground into some Colour Regiments because I was a little too hesitant and unsure of how well they could take artillery. Turns out, well enough. I was lucky to fight two Colour Regiments one-on-one and the power of the Tercio bore out as they made it through the devastating charge potential of the Swedish infantry. 

On my right, a stalemate between two Colour Regiments and my Landsknechts who, supported ably by some caracoling Reiters (who never got to shoot!) and some cavalry held on until a Tercio powered into the flank of a Colour Regiment and saved the day although with no way to stop the cheeky Dragoon who ran through a marsh and sacked my baggage!  

So here's where we finished up:

  

Scotty sacked my camp a turn before I got to his and  I broke. I had one round to finish off two of the Colour Regiments and ding one up a couple of other things to salvage a draw but in the end it was 22 - 19 (I broke on 19, Scotty on 20!) and a thoroughly good game! 

Do I like Tercios? Yes. Are they good? Maybe. In period, I can see they'd be devastating. I definitely wasn't aggressive enough with them and, faced with charging infantry like Scotty's, they didn't really shoot much of anything or take advantage of their weird, multi-sided nature.  

They're very slow and very tough and in this game, a musing Scotty and I had had during the week that if he could win big on a charge with his Salvo infantry he could beat me one-on-one but if he didn't, I'd grind him into paste, definitely proved to be true. And grind is the operative word - we had the same with the Landsknecht Kiel in a shoving match with a Colour Regiment that took me the whole game to win! 

And a couple of things off the modelling bench:  

Flames of War 

In the absence of some 2pdrs for my MW Pacific Australians, I present their air support:  

 

This is Alice, a PBY Consolidated Catalina flying boat and one of my favourite aircraft of the war. She's the right scale for Flames and is so much more fun than a couple of Kittyhawks.  I don't quite have a full set of markings but getting some RAAF roundels was what was needed to at least get her to a point where I'm happy to have her on table. 

Warhammer 40K 

I've also got on and finished another Rough Rider, and started three more, so they're moving along now I'm happy with the palette and the technique:

 The random pop of orange or green, depending on lancehead type and my predilection for painting melta bombs in orange (maybe a nod to the original Space Crusade? I can't remember...) kind of makes me smile against the relatively muted background. There's a lot more khaki than my regular Cadians but that's part of the charm.  

Next Time

Rough Riders and maybe some more Early War Germans...  

What I did on my holidays...

 It's been a while. The end of last year definitely became all about real life and not a lot about hobbying. I'm also enjoying that realisation that comes with middle-age that my eyes don't work so well anymore and as a result, painting became deeply unfun for a while. 

 Mercifully, the summer rolling around and there being cricket on made for hobby time without glasses on a much more pleasing proposition. 

 So I've been doing a bunch of stuff with my summer break and herein is a catalogue of those things! Some of this will also be a bit of a steer as to what's on the gaming calendar for 2026! 

Flames of War

A throwaway conversation with a clubmate at the end of last year about no one playing Flames of War Pacific reminded me that I had a whole army of Australians that could definitely come out to play. So I made up a list and realised that I was, annoyingly, missing a Bofors AA gun and more annoyingly, the platoon of 2pdr AT guns I thought I had painted actually doesn't exist and I have wholly imagined it. 

But I made up a couple of Owen SMG bases and a flamethrower base to turn one of my infantry platoons into a Commando section: 

 

I also re-marked up my vehicles for the army with new decals from BF: 

 

McBeth hooked me up with a 4th Bofors gun and I'll get some 2pdrs at some stage. I've got some RAAF decals inbound to decorate the air support that's slotted in in the absence of the 2pdrs. 

I've also test painted a single Early War tank, just to see how it comes out with the grey and brown and I'm really looking forward to cracking on with this army in anticipation of the release of EW in February:  

It still needs markings and I'm considering throwing some foliage on them just as a colour pop. Historically correct? Probably not. But I kind of want to do it anyway.  

ADLG Renaissance

 Finally done. Am I happy with them? No, not especially but I didn't enjoy painting that army at all. The paint job is tabletop at best but honestly, I just needed to get them done. Basing and flags have helped with the finished product. 

 

 

The completed Early Low Countries Spanish army for ADLG-R: 

And while I'm not thrilled with the paint job on any given bit of the whole army, the collective does look pretty cool. That many flags makes everything better. I'm getting it out for a run next weekend and so we'll see how it goes. 

Warhammer 40K 

Having played almost nothing but Knights last year, I've been focusing on getting some improvements into my Guard army to get this army on the park again this year. 

A new Leman Russ was one of the first adds and, given the armament, I decided he should be a Commissar tank:  

I've also added some new support solos - two new techpriests (one of whom is nice and big for reasons that will become apparent...):  

And from there (also for reasons that will become apparent...) a converted Lord Solar. I did the kitbash for two reasons. First, while I like the Lord Solar model, it's SO out of place in my Guard collection and second, I had an excellent head with a Windsor Davies style mustache and it's perfect for this.  

 

Workbench

I've added a second trio of Bullgryns to bulk them out to a full unit. I'd like to give them a blat in a Grizzled Veterans company with a Commissar to make them more hitty: 

 

I've done a bit of a kitbash on the new Attillan Rough Riders to provide an escort for Lord Solar. They're all built, this is the first painted one: 

 

Finally, the apparent reason: 

 After much back and forth in my own head about whether to magnetise the model, I decided that the point of the whole thing was the meme so I, realistically, am only ever going to use the Baneblade:  

 

She's not quite done - some 3D printed sponsons are inbound (so I can have the double sponson list build with only one pair of actual sponsons) and I am still pondering the specific crewing arrangements but there will be some classic 'DRIVE ME CLOSER I WANT TO HIT IT WITH MY SWORD' energy though.  It's been a great little project that I've really enjoyed. I genuinely can't wait to get it painted and running. 

Next Time

I'll take photos and report back on the performance of the most hateful painting project ever. I have high hopes for the performance of the Tercio but we shall see...